CHAPTER 3

METHODOLOGY

It is evident from literature review that parents as well as teachers are very

often baffled by the children who in spite of having average or above average

intelligence fail to succeed academically. They make many mistakes while

reading; for instance, omission and substitution, jump lines while reading from

text, they are unable to comprehend and apply what they have read. However,

nothing seems to be wrong with their intelligence, vision or hearing; hence,

their mistakes are blamed on their lack of attention, laziness and so on, as a

result, they are punished and treated in an inappropriate way. Such improper

treatments from teachers and parents plus child’s inability to deal with

reading-related difficulties may lead to frustration and self-blame in them. This

labelling further generates several behavioural and emotional problems, such

as bullying, disturbing the class, denial, fear of failure and rejection. Although

this scenario is changing gradually with growing awareness about learning

disability, but in many cases the process ends with growing awareness about

learning disability, diagnosis, and the desire of an appropriate intervention

programme.

The Chapter 1 and 2 also brought an insight that academic achievement

of children as a result of compound effects of various factors associated with

them, for example biological, cognitive, environmental, social and cultural

factors. However, the present study was limited to the effect of interaction

After identification of the gaps in the research, an intervention

programme for children with LPs and LDs was designed keeping in

mind the Indian scenario. The present chapter describes about the

conception of the research study, theoretical framework, and

proposed objectives. Further, discussion follows details of research

paradigm, research design, the intervention programme, research

process, and data collection procedure. Subsequently explanation

has been given about the used techniques to deal with data

(quantitative and qualitative) for the purpose of deriving effects of

the intervention programme on children as well as teacher. It ends

by describing ethical considerations maintained in the study.

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between specific factors intrinsic to the child and the environment (especially

teaching-learning environment). In other words, the impact of interaction

between the child and the teacher was the primary focus of the study. The

conceptual map (figure 3.1) of the study has summarised the various

components associated with the learner and the environment and how the

interaction influences learning outcome of the child. The major identified gaps

that the researcher aimed at bridging, have also been mentioned. The following

section has focused on the contextualisation of the present study in the form of

theoretical framework.

Theoretical Framework of the Study

The study was based on whole classroom approach. Premise that child is

a passive agent in her/his development prevailed and continues to influence

teaching behaviour even today in Indian context. Therefore, the present study

was contextualised in the constructivist approach of learning where the role of

the readers not considered as passive recipient of the information and

environmental stimuli. On the contrary, it says that learners or readers are

actively engaged in the process of learning or bringing out meaning and they

already possess some knowledge (prior to the formal learning) Piaget (1955).

Reading comprehension happens when learners incorporate their already

existing knowledge with new learning/reading gained from the text. But the

construction of knowledge in learner’s mind is always influenced by her/his

social environment/context, termed as social constructivist approach proposed

by Vygotsky (1978). It talks about social nature of learning i.e., learning

occurs when a child interacts with other people or elements in the society

(Oakley, 2004: 38). In this interaction, the role of teachers and/or more

efficient person (peers) is to create an environment where learners would

engage in the process of problem solving. This process underlying within the

zone of proximal development, where the role of the teachers and the more

experienced person is to create stimulating and constructivist learning

environment which provides supportive learning to children. This process

happens through modelling, coaching and scaffolding; initial teachers’ support

is given to children where they need help and, gradually, this support is

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withdrawn. Ultimately, children are encouraged to use learnt skills

independently (Coyne, Zipoi and Ruby, 2006).

Both reading and language are linked with cognition/cognitive factors as

reading and language are products of cognitive processes. This study implied

cognitive strategies based instruction for dealing with children who faced

difficulties in learning reading. The study has also been followed a cognitive-

based strategy, which is a form of cognitive apprenticeship (Rogoff, 1990).

According to Rogoff’ (1990: 7) “children as apprentices in thinking, active in

their efforts to learn from observing and participating with peers and more

skilled members of their society, developing skills to handle culturally defined

problems with available tools, and building from these givens to construct new

solutions within the context of sociocultural activity”. Specifically, the model

of cognitive apprenticeship refers to learning/reading acquisition through

participation in problem solving with more experienced person through the

process of guided practice, modelling, coaching, scaffolding, and watching

without any formal instructions given by them [ibid]. Therefore, teacher makes

her/his knowledge explicit, it helps to develop strategies to coach and scaffold

the learners, which the learners then apply while engaging in authentic

activities. But the acquisition of literacy skills is more complex as many

mediating goals come forth before mastering the reading skills. Therefore,

learning in the school goes beyond what Rogoff refers to as cognitive

apprenticeship.

For the instructional implication of social constructivist and

sociocultural perspective of learning in classroom settings; children’s learning

happens through interaction, negotiation and collaboration, which are the key

features of collaborative and peer-mediated learning approach. In order to

ensure optimum learning in children by utilising available resources in the

school settings, the present study also appreciated the use of collaborative and

peer-mediated learning.

The school where intervention was conducted was comprised of diverse

groups of children. Children with learning problems and learning disability

struggle to develop ability to comprehend what they read. So, in the light of

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the social constructivist approach of learning, teachers would be more open to

make their role explicit to the child and co-construct each child’s ZPD that

would help teachers to alter their teaching-learning approach in order to meet

the needs of diverse groups of children without labelling and blaming them.

For a better understanding, the proposed study has also been represented in the

form of conceptual map (figure 3.1).

Figure: 3. 1 Conceptual Map of the Study

(Effective intervention given at right time

brings changes in neural wiring)

Gap

[Note: The biological factors responsible for learning disability in children have not been looked

upon in the present study.]

Expository text comprehension

Reading Comprehension

Cognitive Factors:

intelligence, attention, memory, cognitive

style, perception,

motivation & language

Learning Problems/Disability

Environmental, social and cultural + teaching

learning environment

Biological factors:

-genetic

-familial

ZPD

-sca

ffo

ldin

g

Vygotsky Theory

-Neuropsychological,

- Neural wiring

Rogoff Theory

Reading

Teachers

Story mapping

Narrative text

comprehension

Language

comprehension; linguistic knowledge,

background knowledge, phonology, syntax,

semantic

Decoding; cipher

knowledge, lexical knowledge, knowledge

of alphabetic principle, phonological awareness,

letter knowledge, concepts of print

Intervention

Insufficiency in any of the cognitive factors on the part of child, for

instance, intelligence, attention, memory, cognitive style, perception and

motivation adversely influences the development and acquisition of language,

which result in poor reading and reading related skills; mainly reading

comprehension. With reference to constructivist point of view, both roles of

learner and learning environment (i.e., instruments available in the

environment and culture) are of prime importance. The present study

incorporated available tools in the environment (both story and the teacher)

and an effort was made to enhance children’s cognitive strategies i.e.,

summarisation and organisation ability. The study also aimed at improving

children’s ability to create links between different components of the lessons

for a better understanding and memory. However, children were trained to

identify story elements (for narrative text) and to create conceptual map or

graphic organisers (for expository text) for themselves. In order to transfer the

skills required to use story mapping to the summarisation of expository text,

children were asked to draw the stories (narrative text) in the form of graphic

organisers apart from identification of the story elements. However, it was

assumed that enhancement of children’s reading comprehension (both

narrative and expository) would help to improve their performance in the final

examination conducted by the school at the end of the academic year.

Rationale of the Study

So far very less work has been done on intervention for children with

LPs and LDs in Indian context, especially in Hindi language in spite of Hindi

being spoken by majority of the population and also being the medium of

instruction in many schools. In India, most of the children access government

schools; however, such a teaching-learning approach is needed that will reach

the maximum number of children in inclusive settings. Most of the

programmes are on one-to-one basis and done by researchers or/and

specialists, thereby making it a costly provision which many people cannot

afford, and school and government authorities find it equally difficult to

engage such large manpower to train children.

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Apart from the gaps summarised in the chapter ‘review of literature’, the

present study was the continuation of the previous research conducted by

Praveen and Konantambigi (2013) where exploration was on primary school

teachers’ perception and their effectiveness for articulating children’s

behaviour and kind of errors they commit in their everyday classroom.

Findings revealed that school teachers were competent enough to articulate

children’s difficulties that they faced in their day-to-day academic life. It

appeared that their problems were very much similar to the difficulties faced

by children with LD as assessed by standard tool for the screening learning

disability in them. But when teachers were asked the reason behind their poor

academic performance; they blamed all the outer factors, for instance,

carelessness and laziness on the part of children as well as family, low socio-

economic status of their family, illiterate parents, and so on and so forth.

Therefore, it could be argued that among these weak children, there might be

few children with LD about whom teachers were unaware. Keeping in mind

the effectiveness of regular teachers (without specific knowledge and in-

service training related to childhood disorders) identification of children’s

behaviour and difficulties they faced, the researcher designed an intervention

programme that was implemented by a regular school teacher (after giving

training) in general classroom for dealing with reading related difficulties of

children with LPs and LDs. The present intervention programme was also an

extension to the research based on classroom intervention conducted by

Narayanan (2013) where she worked towards enhancement of basic reading

skills (alphabetic principle, word identification, spelling, phonology, decoding

and comprehension) in Class IV children with LDs and LPs in a Marathi

medium school located in Pune. However, the present study primarily focused

on the improvement of reading comprehension ability of children.

Sample selection for the study was based on multiple criteria. The

intervention tried to cater to the need of children who are otherwise not able to

access professional help for any kind of learning related problems. At the same

time, teachers who are teaching such children are not aware about childhood

related difficulties encountered by them during their school life. Neither do

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they know how to deal with it within the classroom setting itself to an extent.

In addition, there are many teachers who are not able to get any kind of in-

service training about advance teaching-learning approach for meeting needs

of diverse groups of children’s in a classroom setting. Therefore, Hindi

medium school located in slum rehabilitation colony was chosen where

children come from middle and low socio-economic background. It was also

taken care that Hindi should be the first language for school children. School

was located in Mumbai but majority of children’s families had migrated from

Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Thus, their spoken language at home was Hindi.

Class IV was taken for the study with the rationale that this is the time when

children’s major developmental forces gets developed and at this stage the

burden of academic tasks increases and children with LDs find hard to deal,

consequently start falling behind (Selikowitz, 1998). So this is the time when

children with LDs are easily identified and diagnosed. If at this stage they

would be given appropriate intervention then they would be able to deal with

their difficulties in a better way. In addition, in the early years of schooling

children learn how to read, but by the time they reach to class IV, their focus is

on reading as well as on comprehension of long paragraphs. Therefore, the

present study tried to train children to develop cognitive and meta-cognitive

skills necessary for the reading comprehension.

Objectives

Keeping in mind the gaps identified in existing researches, the present

study aimed at studying the following objectives.

The broad objective was to develop an intervention programme based on

whole classroom approach. Children with LPs and LDs generally form a part

of a regular classroom. The researcher provided training to regular school

teachers. The training tried to focus on the improvement of reading

comprehension of three school subjects (Hindi Language, Social Science and

Science) by adopting the approach of story mapping along with the help of

flowchart (drawing on paper sheet), which is a form of graphic organiser.

More specifically, the objectives were:

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1. To prepare the intervention programme whereby the content of

Language, Social Science and Science become compatible for the use

of story mapping format and conceptual maps.

2. To train the teacher to use the story mapping technique and

conceptual maps.

3. To assess the effect of the intervention on children’s reading

comprehension of narrative text or stories, on expository text and on

school achievement scores.

4. To document the implementation of the intervention programme

based on story mapping technique and conceptual maps in terms of

impact on teacher’s perspective and feasibleness of classroom based

intervention module.

In order to study above stated objectives, a combination of qualitative

and quantitative approach was followed. A detail of the research design has

been described below.

Research Design

In the present study, an intervention programme for children with LPs

and LDs was developed and tried out in natural setting (primary school) to

establish its effectiveness. The researcher trained the regular class teacher for

use of specific strategies required for children’s leaning. In turn, the Class IV

teacher in Hindi medium school implemented the intervention and ongoing

sessions were supervised by the researcher. The researcher started the study

with the intention of designing an experimental research study where treatment

group would have been compared with control group. While pursuing

permission from schools to conduct the study, she really had to struggle. She

approached various schools authority, but did not get consent to conduct the

research. It appeared from their expression that they were not willing for any

kind of interference in school routine. In one of the schools, the researcher was

interviewed by the school principal; afterwards, she was told ‘no’. The school

from where she finally got permission to carry out the research was primarily

an English medium high school, but it had Hindi medium section too. Hindi

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medium section of the Class IV in the school had only one division; therefore,

another section was not available which would have served the purpose of the

control group. Therefore, the same group of children were studied at different

point of time: prior to the intervention (pre-test), then during the intervention

(implementation of the intervention), and after a gap of 2 weeks their

performance was measured to see the maintenance effect of the intervention

(i.e., post-intervention). Thus, the present study was conducted in a naturalistic

condition where random assignment of samples in treatment and control group

was not possible due to the absence of control group; therefore, it was a Quasi-

experimental design (Fife-Schaw, 2000). The study followed a mixed method

approach where both quantitative and qualitative approaches were merged to

meet the proposed objectives of the study. While mixing these methods, one

approach always leads the other (Creswell, 2003: 218). In the present study,

quantitative approach was used to assess children with LD, and low IQ. The

same approach was used to see the changes in children’s learning outcomes

before and after the intervention. It included mainly improvement in reading

and related skills: word reading, phonology, fluency, speed, decoding, spelling

and comprehension, and children’s academic achievement in mid-term and

final examination. On the other hand, in order to see a holistic impact and

success of the intervention, qualitative method was adopted. The assessments

of children were also done in qualitative way, and so was the demonstration of

implementation of the intervention programme and its feasibility. In the

present study, the quantitative approach dominated the qualitative approach,

and data was collected by using these two approaches simultaneously: referred

as concurrent nested design. The qualitative approach being less dominating;

thus, it was nested within quantitative approach that primarily guided the

research study [ibid].

Research Settings

School Related Information:

Initially, planning was to conduct the intervention study in government

school but getting consent to carry out the research was not an easy task. It

required lots of formalities and so as the time to perform it. Due to limited

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time, decision was taken to conduct the research in the private school after

getting permission from the school authority. As mentioned earlier, being

primary implementers, teachers were the main part of the intervention which

required rigorous training and lots of time too. However, government school

teachers are usually engaged in several non-teaching tasks, for example,

census survey, invigilation duty in competitive examination, facilitate polling

during elections and many other activities, which consumed a significant

amount of time and create a lot of pressure on the part of teachers. So in such a

condition expecting extra time from them and interference in their schedule

was not possible.

The school where intervention based research was carried out was

located in north-eastern part of Mumbai, Maharashtra. It was an unaided

private school, which was in the midst of the slum rehabilitation colony. The

school followed The Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher

Secondary Education curriculum. Children were from middle and low socio-

economic background and their parents were mainly daily wage-earners and

auto and taxi drivers. Most of the families had migrated from Uttar Pradesh

and Bihar. Majority of the children stayed in close proximity to the school

premise. It had two sections English medium and Hindi medium. School ran in

two shifts; morning (7am to 12:20 pm) and evening (12:30 to 6:30 pm), where

space was shared between higher and lower grades or in some cases between

different mediums of instruction. This arrangement required a lot of

cooperation and mutual understanding. After getting written permission from

head of the school, Hindi medium section was chosen for the study. The

school principal and other teaching staff welcomed the researcher to be the

part of the school. Initially, she faced some difficulties to gel with school

teachers, after the passage of time she accumulated well. In the beginning she

used to go to school, ask teacher to take intervention session by applying

specific strategies and come back. Later on she realised that in order to

become the part of the school, she should spend more time with teaching staffs

apart from the academic discussions. Then she started having lunch and tea

with them. Afterwards gradually she became the part of their daily routine.

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Following were the Reasons behind Selection of the School:

1. Hindi medium school which consisted children from middle and lower

class families.

2. The school followed SSC curriculum. It was necessary as tools for

measuring children’s language skills and intervention programme was

based on SSC curriculum.

3. Permission was granted to carry out the research.

4. Visit to the school was required on the daily basis, thus, the school was

chosen as it was located near the Tata Institute of Social Sciences,

Mumbai.

Infrastructure Facilities of the School:

The place where school was situated was an old dilapidated building.

Classrooms were dark, dingy with broken floors and broken windows. Toilets

were unhygienic and no separate toilet for girls and boys. There was no

playground and neither was there a boundary wall. Plaster keen peeling off

walls. The water seepage has weakened the structure of buildings. Water taps

were broken and irregular access of water. School was being run in rented

building which was in a very bad condition and too small to accommodate all

children. Thus, there was little space to make available necessary facilities.

Classroom was so small that children had to sit almost on each other’s laps. In

the absence of electricity, it was not possible to teach children due to lack of

natural day light in the room.

Lack of Academic Support from Parents and Family Members of

Children:

As mentioned earlier that parents of the children were daily wage-

earners, so, they did not have enough time to spend on children. Children

hardly get any support from their parent and other family members in

academic realm. Due to lack of support from the family, it was difficult for the

teachers to keep the children motivated in the studies. In this context, the role

of teachers is most important in realising the goal of imparting quality

education. Therefore, massive and intense teacher training required during the

course of implementation of the intervention programme.

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Pilot Testing

After the development of intervention programme, pilot testing was

done. The researcher trained the Class teacher for the implementation of the

sessions, and the teacher carried out two sessions. The pilot testing was done

on children from English medium of Class IV as Hindi medium of Class IV

had only one section that was used for the intervention programme. The

classroom consisted of 53 children. During the implementation, observation

was done by the researcher about the implementation process, children’s

reaction towards activities, and class control.

After the pilot testing necessary changes were made. For example, an

extra item was added by the researcher i.e., writing name of all the characters

in the story. It was noticed during the pilot testing that children were finding

difficulties in finding the name of the main character. Then she added a new

question where they had to write names of all characters and from there they

had to identify the main character and second most important character. By

writing the names of all the characters on the paper, children found it easy to

choose names of the main character and of the second important character.

This item was added to facilitate the children to find the correct answers,

therefore, it was not assigned any score. Another observation was made that

children were not able to answer all 10 generic questions of the story mapping

technique; therefore, in the actual intervention all 10 elements were not asked.

In the beginning, only 4/5 elements were asked and gradually number of

questions were increased as children attained mastery with every response to

every item. Next, the intervention programme was implemented on Class IV

children of Hindi medium. Details of the sample of the study have been given

below.

Sample of the Study

Samples consisted of Class IV children as well as the teacher. Details

about sample have been presented in following section:

Details of the Teacher:

In the school, every teacher was assigned one class and s/he had to teach

her/his respective class for entire academic year. So there was only one teacher

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who was teaching Class IV, who was a female, aged 25 years, and had done

D.Ed. She had teaching experience for four years. The intervention programme

was implemented by the class teacher of IV grade. The teacher was chosen

with the rationale that majority of intervention programmes were implemented

by the experts and researchers, which consumed lot of resources and time.

Access to these resources was restricted to certain group of people coming

from economically sound family background. Therefore, in the present study

teacher was chosen as an implementer so that the intervention could reach to

maximum number of children by utilising resources available at school setting.

In the present study, teacher training was very important because in this

school teachers were not exposed to advanced teaching-learning pedagogies.

They had stereotype thinking that children were not able to perform well as

they were careless, coming from poor and illiterate family background.

Moreover, they were also practicing teacher-centric teaching-learning

approach in the classroom. Therefore, it was very challenging for the

researcher to break teachers’ pre-conceived perception and beliefs about

children, causes behind poor academic performance and teaching-learning

pedagogy. Details of the teacher training will be discussed in next section.

Details of Class IV Children:

There were 48 children in Class IV with the mean age 9.6 (years and

months) years. It was reported by school teacher during the interview that out

of 48 children, 6 children in Class IV were not able to read. The teacher was

bound to give passing marks to these children in class tests and examinations.

Therefore, these children were promoted to the next class after final exams.

These children had come from government schools where there was least

focus on learning outcomes in children and they had also started formal

education late, as mentioned by the teacher. Researcher did not include these

children as the part of the main sample as they had not developed basic

reading skills. They were treated differently and changes occurred during the

course of the intervention among these children have been analysed in

qualitative way that have been discussed in Chapter 6. In spite of the fact that

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these children were not able to read and write, their school note books and

assignments were completed at time. In other words, all home works and

question answers were written in their notebook. They were not able to read

but were expert in copying answers from the black board. Another 3 children

were registered but did not turn for all the sessions. Therefore, the main

sample comprised of 39 children. These 39 children were further categorised

in several groups: children with learning disability (LD) and children with

below average IQ (less that 85, followed DSM-IV criteria). Remaining

children did not show such learning problems which required extra attention;

therefore, they formed another group and referred to as children without

learning problems. In total, all children have been divided in 3 sub-groups.

Criteria for their assessment have been described in assessment section. In

table 3.1, details of the Class IV children have been presented.

Table 3.1 Details of all children of Class IV

Children with No. of Children

Learning Disability (LD) 5

Low IQ 2

Without Leaning problems 32

Who Could not Read 6

Absent in Class 3

Total Number of Children in the class 48

As mentioned earlier, there were 6 children enrolled in Class IV who

had failed to develop basic reading skills. Details of these children have been

presented in table (3.6). These children were with average IQ: which showed

that they were capable enough to learn how to read but they were deprived

from the exposure of the text material and basic reading skills. Even after

joining the private school (the present school) they were struggling with letters

and words every day. At the same time, the teacher was least interested in the

enhancement of their literacy skills.

Operational Definition Followed for the Assessments

Multiple criteria were followed to diagnose children with LPs and LDs.

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Children with Low IQ: children’s IQ below 85 on any of the intelligence

tests used in the present study.

Children with Learning Disability: Children who had score 44 (above 73%)

on Behavioural Checklist for Screening the Learning Disabled (BCSLD), and

an average range of intelligence (deviation IQ 85 or above) measured by

Draw-A-Man Test and Indian Child Intelligence Test (ICIT). In addition, their

score 40% and below on any of the sub-tests of Learning Disability Detection

Test –Vernacular Languages (LDDT–VL), were treated as children with LDs.

Assessment Criteria

In order to design an intervention programme for children, especially

children with LDs, the first important and challenging step was assessment.

Accurate and proper assessments gave an insight about children’s strengths

and weaknesses. In other words, it brought an understanding about what

children know and where they need to be improved. This further allowed

catering the need of the children. Selecting an appropriate assessment was a

major challenge for the researcher. Therefore, the researcher tried to adapt

both formal and informal assessment methods. Thus, multiple approaches were

used for the assessment purpose, which were as follows:

Tools for Assessment:

1. Interview with the Teacher: An in-depth interview was conducted with the

class teacher of Class IV, which included information about the children who

were academically poor, kind of problems they faced in everyday classroom,

steps taken by teachers and school authority to address their problems

(appendix I). Teacher also named children who were lagging behind in

comparison to other children in the same class. Children were also observed by

the researcher to see the kind of difficulties they face and nature of reading

errors they commit.

2. Behavioural Checklist for Screening the Learning Disabled (BCSLD):

This screening device was developed by Swarup and Mehta (1991, in Marathi

language) for the age group of 6−13 years. It has 30 items which has integrated

all the aspects of learning, such as, the ability to process visual and auditory

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information, memory, comprehension, thinking, psychomotor skills, self-

image and motivation; which contribute to children’s academic achievement.

Items of the checklist were worded as positives and negatives that was an

indicator of children’s strength and weaknesses. The checklist was given to the

class teacher and asked to give answers about every child in the form of “yes”,

“No” and “?”. Answer “yes” for those behaviour which was very often seen in

the child, “No”, for those behaviour which was completely absent and “?” for

those behaviour which was neither frequently occurring nor completely absent.

The teacher knew the Marathi language, so she could do it easily. Following

were the eight areas highlighted in the BCSLD checklist: deficits in visual

processing, deficits in auditory processing, deficits in motor co-ordination,

deficits in the cognitive domain, deficits in language, deficits in memory,

perseveration tendencies, and disorders in the affective domains. These eight

areas mentioned in the checklist are clearly defined but there is also possibility

that they may overlap, such as, child’s poor auditory processing skills and poor

cognition could be resulted in learning difficulties. So the most significance of

BCSLD is that the observed behaviour in the children tells us about the

underlying process deficit, which is the basic cause of learning difficulties. It

can be considered as further assessment and remediation.

Scoring: For scoring purpose, BCSLD manual was followed. Scores above

27% were considered as children with at-risk for LD. In other words, children

who had achieved 73% and above were considered suspected cases of LD.

They were assessed further for the accurate diagnosis.

3. Draw-A-Man Test for Indian Children: Children with LD are diagnosed

when they pose IQ in normal range and exhibit poor academic performance. In

order to follow criteria of IQ-achievement discrepancy, children’s IQ was

measured with the help of Draw-A-Man Test. The test was revised and

extended by Dr. Pramila Pathak in the year 2009, which was adapted from

Goodenough Draw-A-Man test developed by Dr. Florence L. Goodenough

(1926). Class IV children were given the test drawing sheet and they were

instructed to draw a human figure as per the instructions given in the manual.

The administration of the test was done in group. For scoring purpose manual

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was referred. On the basis of raw scores, children’s mental age (MA) was

calculated. Their chronological age (CA) was noted at the time of

administration of the test (i.e., October 2012). Then IQ, DQ and PR (percentile

rank) was calculated according to manual’s instructions. Children with

deviation IQ 85 or above were considered within normal range of intelligence.

In Draw-A-Man Test, drawing a human figure mainly represents a

child’s self, body and sex role identity. A child’s muscles control and motor

control are two very important aspects of drawing a human figure. But these

are not only abilities which are part of an individual’s intelligence. So, in order

to avoid misdiagnosis of children with LDs, another test of intelligence was

administered to children who had scored 73% and above score on BCSLD and

who had IQ within an average range (85 or above) measured by Draw-A-Man

Test for Indian children.

4. Indian Child Intelligence Test (ICIT): The ICIT was adapted from a Dutch

Intelligence test named Revised Amsterdam Kinder Intelligence Test (RAKIT)

for Indian population in 2005. It was adapted by a group of researchers from

different centres, for example, Professor Dr. Nico Bleichrodt (author of

RAKIT, Free University, Amsterdam, Netherlands), Professor Dr. Rene A.C.

Hoksbergen, (Adoption Centre, Utrecht, Netherlands); Professor Dr. Usha

Khire (Jnana Prabodhini, Pune); Dr. Shalini Bharat and Meenakshi Apte (Tata

Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai). Marathi speaking children were taken

as samples during the development phase of the test. But test’s appropriateness

was checked with English, Hind and Gujarati speaking population. It is a

culture-free test. It is an individual test which takes about two hours to

administer. It measures various abilities for example, perception of form

(Gestalt), concept formation, memory span, associative memory span, learning

and remembering, spatial visualisation, and visual motor-co-ordination of

children aged between 4–12 years). It includes 9 sub-tests: (a) Closure, (b)

Exclusion, (c) Memory Span, (d) Verbal Meaning, (e) Mazes, (f) Learning

Names, (g) Quantity, (h) Discs, and (i) Figure.

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Test items were divided in three groups according to the age of the

children. For example, Group I (4 years 2 months 0 days–6 years 1 month 30

days), Group II (6 years 2 months 0 days–8 years 1 month 30 days) and Group

III (8 years 2 months 0 days–11 years 11 months 30 days). Scoring was done

according to the instructions given in the manual.

5. Learning Disability Detection Test–Vernacular Languages (LDDT–VL) in

Hindi language: The test was used to measure learning disability in children

which is a criterion referenced test. It was developed in year 2007 by Dr.

Dharmishta Mehta and Ms. Apoorva Panshikar, Centre of Special Education,

SNDT University, Mumbai. It measures three broad areas, for example,

perceptual processes (consists 5 sub-tests), cognitive process (consists 3 sub-

tests) and language skills (consists 2 sub-tests). In sum, it includes 10 items,

which are as follows: a) Eye-hand co-ordination, b) Figure Ground, c) Figure

Constancy, d) Position in Space, e) Spatial relations, f) Auditory processing, g)

Cognitive Abilities (CA), h) Memory, i) Receptive language, and j) Expressive

language. The test is available in three languages; Hindi, Marathi and Gujarati

which measured LD in children of age range between 8−11 years. It takes

around two hours to administer the test but there is no fixed such time limit.

Reliability co-efficient of the test is 0.133. The test does not have items for

evaluating specific language/reading skills. Because of unavailability of

standard tests for measuring language skills of children with LDs in Hindi, this

test was followed.

Scoring: Item number 1 of the test was scored in qualitative way. The second

part of item number 10, where children were asked to describe given picture in

15 sentences were also analysed in qualitative manner. Rest of the items were

scored according to the manual’s instructions. During the qualitative analysis

various aspects were taken care of, for instance, neatness of handwriting,

errors committed by children, kind of errors, grammatical mistakes, flow of

thought and co-ordination or link between content and thought, use of words,

and their performance according to their class level.

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Pre-intervention Assessment

Reading Skills Assessment of Children with LDs and low IQ: Reiterating to the

absence of evaluation of specific reading skills items in standard tools used in the

study, the researcher developed materials for assessing different components of

reading skills. Before starting the intervention, children were measured on the

following reading components because these reading components are critical and

predictors of successful reading. Materials for the assessment of reading skills were

developed based on school curriculum from Class I to IV, which measured

following reading skills:

1) Word Reading Accuracy Task: It referred reading words in text without

committing any error. It consisted two subtasks:

a. Simple Word Reading Task: It had 30 words (15 without matras and 15 with

matras).

Scoring: Correct = 1 and Incorrect = 0

Maximum Scores =30

b. Consonant Cluster Word Reading Task: There were 30 words with blended

consonants and matras.

Scoring: Correct = 1 and Incorrect = 0

Maximum Scores = 30

2) Word Reading Fluency Task: Reading fluency is an ability to read written

text accurately without any conscious effort. It happens with repeated reading

and practice of text. This is a fundamental reading skill that occurs

automatically with minimum or no cognitive effort. It opens door for the

development of reading comprehension skill which is the ultimate goal of

reading. Speed (how quick one can read), accuracy (reading without

committing any error) and expression (changing the tone of voice to reflect

emotion and feeling while reading) are three important component of reading

fluency.

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The method for the development of the task was adapted from Aaron,

Joshi and Williams (1999) who used a list of content word for assessing word

reading speed. There were 60 words in reading fluency task. These words were

noun, verb, and adjectives with highly frequently occurrence.

The maximum score of a child was the total number of words read

correctly in one minute, referred as WPM (Word per Minute).

Scoring: Correct = 1 and Incorrect = 0

Maximum Scores= 60

3) Word Attack Task: The word attack task was used for the assessment of

children’s decoding ability. Decoding ability involve the process of translating

symbol into sound (i.e., grapheme-phoneme correspondence). The

development of the task based on the lines of study conducted by Wimmer

(1996) which consisted of 15 nonwords or pseudowords. These nonwords

were created by exchanging initial letter of the real word within the list. The

length of nonwords was similar to real words. Nonwords were selected to

measure decoding ability of children in order to reduce the likelihood of

recognition of words due to familiarity effect or sight word reading. Nonwords

were of different length ranging from 2 to 5 syllables.

Scoring: Reading was evaluated in terms of number of words read correctly.

Appropriate self correction by readers was marked as positive response.

Correct = 1 and Incorrect = 0

Maximum Scores: 15

4) Phonological Awareness Task: Construction of the test strategies was

adapted from Nag, Margaret and Snowling (2011). They have worked on

Kannada language which also shares features of alpha-syllabic orthographic

system. It includes 3 sub-tasks:

a. Detection of Words with Same Final Phoneme: In the beginning of the test

one word was presented by researcher to the child and s/he was asked to listen

to the simple stimulus words. Immediately after that a list of 6 words was

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orally presented. Then the child was asked to delete 3 words with similar

ending sound. Before giving experimental trial, one practice trial was

presented. This subtest consisted one practice trial and two experimental trials.

Scoring: Correct = 1 and Incorrect = 0

Maximum Scores: 6

b. Detection of Words with Different Final Phoneme: Similar procedure was

followed but child had to identify words with different ending sound from the

stimulus words. Same scoring was followed.

c. Sound Deletion Task: Ten words were presented (one by one) to the child and

s/he was asked to take out the initial sound in the word and say the word that

was left afterwards. Same scoring was followed.

Scoring: Correct=1 and Incorrect=0

Maximum Scores: 10

5) Orthographic Choice Task: This task was used for the assessment of child’s

ability to recognise spelling of the words. Words with and without vowels

(matras) and consonants clusters were taken, which was adapted from

Peabody Individual Achievement Test /PIAT (Markwardt, 1989) revised by

O’Shanghney and Swanson, (2000). Each word was presented with 4 options

(1 real word and 3 nonwords). Total words were 50.

Scoring: Correct = 1 and Incorrect = 0

Maximum Scores= 50

6) Text-reading Fluency Task: It was used to assess child’s text-reading speed.

Child’s reading on comprehension task was recorded and assessed later on.

Total number of words in the story was counted and time taken by child was

recorded in seconds.

Scoring:

Total number of words in the story was (294), divided by time taken (in

seconds) by child to read the story.

[Note: One decimal place was taken.]

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Reading Speed= Scores obtained in the above mentioned step was multiplied

by 60 (seconds in 1 minute). This was the rate of text-reading in one minute/

WPM (i.e., Word per Minute) of the child.

7) Text-reading Accuracy Task: It measures the child’s ability to read text

without committing errors. It was calculated by dividing the number of words

read correctly by the total number of words read, which gave the Percent

Accuracy Level.

8) Reading Comprehension Task: The primary focus of the intervention

programme was to enhance reading comprehension ability of children.

Therefore, taking measure of their reading comprehension ability was very

important aspect. For this purpose, a story from school story textbook was

given to the child and asked to read. After completion of the reading, 10

questions were given to answer which were presented therein. These 10 items

were adapted from advanced story mapping technique (Gardill and Jitendra

1999 and Idol and Croll, 1987). In the present study it has been referred as

story mapping technique.

[Note: Story was taken from Class II storybook. Items used for assessing basic

reading skills have been represented in appendix II].

Table 3.2 Items and Scoring Plan for Story Mapping Technique:

Story Mapping Technique Elements Possible Scores

1. Main Character 1

2. Characteristics of main character 2

3. Second important character 1

4. Characteristics of the second

important character

2

5. Timing of the story 1

6. Setting of the story 1

7. Problem/s encounter by the main

character in the story

2

8. Steps taken to solve the problem/s 2

9. How is the problem solved or not

solve/end of the story

2

10. Lesson of the story/theme 1

Total Scores 15

Source: Adapted from Gardill and Jitendra, 1999 and Idol and Croll, 1987.

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Different Groups of Children and Assessment Criteria

The intervention was followed a whole classroom approach, where all

children were dealt together. The intervention primarily aimed at dealing with

LPs and LDs children but other children of the class were also the part. In

order to avoid losing a large number of data, different groups were formed and

analysis has been done accordingly. For their assessment, multiple approaches

were followed to form the group. Children were mainly divided into 4 sub-

groups: children with LD, children with low IQ, children without learning

problems and children who could not read. Criteria followed for making the

sub-groups have been discussed in the respective tables.

Children with LD:

After assessment through various approaches 5 children were diagnosed

with LD. Details of these children have been given in table 3.3. First of all, the

Class IV teacher was interviewed and an interview guideline (Appendix I) was

followed for the same. During the interview teacher was asked about the

children who had some kind of learning related difficulties or problems. An

exploration was done about the kind of errors they committed, problems they

faced in reading and the step taken by the teacher and other school authority to

address children’s problems. Afterward, BCSLD checklist was used where

teacher had to rate the children’s behaviour. Apart from that all the children’s

IQ was measured with the help of Draw-A-Man test. Children who had score

73% and above on BCSLD and who were facing some kind of reading related

difficulties, were given another test of intelligence (i.e., ICIT). The second test

of intelligence was used to re-assess their intelligence in order to confirm IQ-

achievement discrepancy. For the assessment of learning disability in children,

LDDT-VL was used. Children’s score 40% or less on any of the sub-test

represented their weakness on the respective domain.

Table 3.3 Details of the children with LD and their performance on the assessment tools:

S.

No

Name of

Children

Sex Age Teacher Interview BCSLD

Scores

DAM Scores ICIT

Scores

LDDT-VL (40% or less scores

on sub-tests)

Diagnosis

RS % RS IQ DIQ PR

1 Faizan B 8.3 Reading Problem 44 73 47 123 116 86 108 very poor eye-hand co-ordination,

figure ground, spatial relations,

auditory processing, cognitive

abilities, memory, expressive

language

LD

2 Priya G 8.3 Reading Problem 44 73 28 87 94 34 100 very poor eye-hand co-ordination,

position in space, auditory

processing, cognitive abilities,

memory, receptive language,

expressive language

LD

3 Manan B 12 Reading Problem 48 80 51 91 93 32 94 auditory processing, cognitive

abilities, memory, receptive

language

LD

4 Prerna G 9.5 Reading Problem 46 77 64 141 126 96 113 Cognitive abilities, memory,

expressive language

LD

5 Mansi G 10.4 Reading Problem 46 77 48 100 103 58 92 Cognitive abilities, memory,

receptive language

LD

Note: G=Girl, B=Boy, DAM=Draw-A-Man test, RS=Raw Score, DIQ= Deviation IQ & PR=Percentile Rank

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Children with Low IQ: There were two children who scored below the average rage of IQ (below 85) on intelligence tests. These

children had difficulties related to learning and reading. But they were not diagnosed as LD because of low intelligence. Their problems

were attributed to the limited intelligence.

Table 3.4 Details of the children with low IQ and their performance on the assessment tools

S.

No

Children’

s Name

Sex Age Teacher Interview BCSLD

Scores

DAM Scores ICIT

Scores

LDDT-VL (40% or less scores on sub-tests)

RS % RS IQ DIQ PR

1 Rubi G 12.2 Reading Problem 28 46 35 68 78 7 67 Figure constancy, spatial relations, cognitive

abilities, memory, receptive, expressive

language

2 Angad G 9.9 Reading Problem 44 73 23 67 83 13 80 very poor eye-hand co-ordination, position in

space, auditory processing, cognitive abilities,

memory, receptive language, expressive

language

Children without Learning Problems:

Children with an average IQ, less than 43 scores on BCSLD and with

good academic performance in examination conducted by school fall in this

group.

Table 3.5 Details of children without Learning Problems and their

performance on assessment tools

S.

No

.

Name of

children

Sex Age BCSLD Scores

DAM Score

RS % RS IQ DQ PR

1 Farha G 10.1 12 20 47 103 102 55

2 Rajani G 8.02 12 20 42 117 109 73

3 Mukta G 11.2 30 50 44 88 93 32

4 Afshan G 9.11 08 13 54 124 116 86

5 Faria G 10.3 18 30 55 112 110 75

6 Naz G 8.11 14 23 27 86 93 32

7 Paragya G 9.4 28 47 38 94 99 47

8 Bhakti G 7.8 24 40 52 144 130 98

9 Saneha G 8.2 08 13 49 129 117 87

10 Anjali G 10.1 08 13 58 118 113 81

11 Shalini G 9.5 10 17 43 101 104 61

12 Chanchal G 8.3 36 60 44 118 111 77

13 Laara G 11.7 16 27 62 104 110 75

14 Sana G 8.2 18 30 57 144 127 96

15 Shabnam G 7.8 36 60 43 123 119 90

16 Suman G 9.4 16 27 42 100 103 58

17 Anjum G 10.2 10 17 67 137 122 93

18 Taara G 9 34 57 49 118 110 75

19 Naina G 10.11 36 60 47 103 102 55

20 Suniketa G 12.1 14 23 54 93 95 37

21 Rani G 9.4 20 33 40 98 101 53

22 Sukanya G 8.5 40 67 39 106 106 66

23 Anandi G 8.11 22 37 52 138 120 91

24 Aman B 12.7 06 10 54 87 95 37

25 Prem B 8.8 14 23 42 106 109 73

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26 Samar B 10 22 37 95 155 149 99

27 Rahul B 8.6 14 23 56 130 124 95

28 Vicky B 9.11 10 17 49 114 110 75

29 Ankur B 11.2 30 60 51 98 99 47

30 Akshay B 11.6 06 10 52 93 100 50

31 Sheyam B 12.3 12 20 68 117 108 70

32 Shekhar B 9.1 36 60 40 101 101 53

Children who could not Read:

Details of children mentioned in table 3.6, were those children who were

not able to read as they had started their formal schooling very late, and had

came from such family background where there was less or no focus on their

learning. They got admission to government school in early days of schooling,

therefore, they lagged behind as government school teachers are least

interested in the learning outcome of children. These were the factors causing

poor learning in children as mentioned by the school teacher. These children

were not the part of the intervention programme as it aimed at enhancing

comprehension ability which required acquisition of basic reading skills. It

also required acquisition of lower level of reading skills, thus, these children

were treated differently. Changes in their behaviour that occurred during the

course of the intervention have been discussed in Chapter 6.

Table 3.6 Details of Children who were not able to Read:

S.

No.

Name of

Children

Age Sex Draw-A-Man test scores

RS IQ DIQ PR

1 Khushi 10.9 G 51 101 106 66

2 Sanaya 8.9 G 38 99 105 63

3 Ayan 8.11 B 42 116 109 73

4 Pankaj 8.3 B 29 88 95 37

5 Bhanu 9.6 B 47 106 108 70

6 Raj 9.8 B 31 79.5 92 30

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Exclusion Criteria

Children with severe intellectual impairment (mentally retarded),

hearing and visual impairment were not the part of the study. There was not a

single child in Class IV with such impairment. Children who had not acquired

basic reading skills were not included in the main sample as the intervention

focussed on the enhancement of a higher level of reading skills which required

development basic reading skills. Therefore, 6 children who could not read and

write did not form the sample.

The assessment informed the researcher about children’s language skills.

Based on this assessment, intervention was positioned in such a way that the

story mapping was commenced at the level of the most poorly performing

child. For example, if children had too many errors at the word reading level,

story mapping began at such a level. Details of the intervention programme

and procedure of implementation has been discussed below.

The Intervention Programme

Story mapping technique is a form of graphic organiser used for the

enhancement of reading comprehension skills that have been illustrated and

used by many researchers (as mentioned in chapter ‘review of literature’).

Story telling or narration of stories has been an important part of any culture

and act as a tool for conveying important messages in a very effective way.

Therefore, the current research adopted story mapping technique along with

drawing the same, for the purpose of improving reading comprehension of

children. The intervention study was implemented in the classroom setting in

which children from middle and low socio-economic background come. The

intervention was started with the mapping of stories (identification of main

elements of the stories) on the basis of children’s interest and gradually tried to

transfer the story mapping strategy to other subjects (Hindi, Social Science and

Science). The face validity of the intervention programme based on scientific

strategies was assessed by consulting experts in the field. Before starting the

intervention with Class IV children in Hindi medium, a pilot testing was done

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with children of same grade from the other section in order to check how

sessions going. For this purpose children were taken from English medium

section of class IV as there was no other section of Class IV Hindi medium.

These children were confident in Hindi language and they also had to study

Hindi language as a subject. The actual intervention was carried out in the

following ways:

Phase I: Base Line Training

After pre-assessment, three sessions in the beginning were spent on

doing classroom discussion by the teacher. The class teacher narrated general

stories and children were encouraged for the discussion. The teacher was

aware about the story mapping questions, thus, she was asking one question at

a time and children were asked to answer orally. Initially, it was noticed that

children who were good at studies were more curious to answer. She tried to

give more opportunities to those children who were weak in studies. Children

who were good in studies but they were not confident enough to raise their

hands to answer any question in front of entire class, were encouraged and

given more chances to actively participate in the discussion. In these sessions

children were neither asked to write answers of the story mapping questions

nor draw the story on the paper sheet. An important observation was made

during the sessions that children who were not confident to answer infront for

all, were not able to generate correct answers in spite of knowing the answers.

The rationale behind oral sessions was training children to identify story

elements. Many a times when children were not able to answer or came up

with incorrect answers, they were corrected by the teacher and peers.

Then another, 4 general stories (short stories) were narrated to children

by the class teacher and they were asked to draw main elements of the stories

like character, problems, attempts/resolutions, reaction, theme and details of

the story presented therein. In order to gain children’s interest and activate

cognitive functioning responsible for doing any task, the intervention started

by saying that “Today do you want to study or do you want to do draw”?

Majority of children showed preference for drawing. Before started the

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drawing, they were asked to identify important story elements as they did in

oral sessions. They were supported by the teacher as well as by the researcher

whenever they needed any help during the sessions.

Phase II: Practice of the Intervention Programme

After giving an overview about the various elements of story elements, a

shift was made towards answering these questions in the written form, which

gave children an opportunity to engage with the text and/or literacy

components. All sessions were started with 1 or 2 minutes activity in order to

make children active and to get their attention as school was scheduled in

afternoon. Most of the children appeared very sleepy and inattentive. After

getting familiarity with the skills required for story mapping, there was a move

towards how to use the story mapping strategies that were taught by the

teacher and was learnt by the children, for the comprehension of school subject

i.e., Hindi language. Intervention was given 5 days in a week and duration of

the intervention ranged between 40–50 minutes. Every session was assessed to

see the effect of the intervention, and a scoring procedure was followed for

this purpose. Scores were provided on the basis of the number of correct

answers provided by children regarding story elements. Constant monitoring

as the session was in progress was made by the teacher and the researcher to

get the procedure going. Scaffolding occurred to slowly increase the

competencies of children. A detail of the intervention sessions has been

mentioned in table 4.1. The researcher maintained daily diary to record

children’s reaction towards the interventions and changes occurred during the

intervention. Recording about teacher’s reaction, behaviour towards children,

teaching-learning approach etc was also included in daily diary.

As mentioned earlier that story mapping techniques included 10 generic

questions, but all questions were not asked in the beginning in every session.

In the beginning, they were asked only 5/6 questions. The numbers of

elements, included in the sessions increased as children get mastery over other

elements asked earlier. Towards the end of the intervention programme

children were able to answer all 10 generic questions based on the given story

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in a single session. Stories that were used during the course of the intervention

were in increasing difficulty level; complexities in terms of used words and

sentences and complexities of the story where it was difficult for children to

identify or derive answers. Complexity was also in terms of more number of

characters present in the story and role they played. In order to maintain

difficulty level of the text according to grade level, stories were taken from

Class II, III and IV books.

The intervention started with the training for the use of story mapping

and practice for the same with minimum assistance provided by the teacher

and it lasted till the end of the academic year. An effort was made to transfer

children’s acquired skill which helped to organising or drawing stories on the

paper sheet to use same for the expository text. For this purpose, lessons were

taken from Social Science books (they had two books; Geography and History

which consisted lessons of civics as well) and children were encouraged to

organised important points or aspects of the lesson on a paper. At the time

when the shift happened, children were told by the teacher that “now, we are

going to learn a new technique that will help you to remember things in a

better way. Are you ready?” Children appeared very enthusiastic to learn a

new mantra for a better memory. The teacher read out a lesson from the

Geography book of Class IV and all children were asked to read the same

lesson in their books. Afterwards they were asked to summarise important

information of the lesson on a sheet. All children were clueless and appeared

lost. After that, the teacher again asked a child from the class to read out the

lesson loudly and the teacher helped them to identify and underline important

points. The session was modelled mainly by the teacher in the organisation of

the lesson and assistance was also provided by the researcher. After a few

successful sessions from the Social Science, the teacher wanted to use the

same approach to teach science subject as well. This initiative from the teacher

brought a positive hope in the researcher about the effectiveness of the

intervention programme. In spite of the fact that the intervention was planned

to use for two school subjects (Hindi and Social Science) only, it ended up by

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adding science subject too. Sessions based on narrative text and expository

text happened simultaneously.

It was noticed during the intervention that in few sessions children did

not appear interested in writing answers of the questions. Rather, they wanted

to draw. To get their attention they were told that if they write the answers

very quickly, then they would be allowed to draw. But this approach was not

successful all the time. So, considering children’s mood, in few of the sessions

they only drew the story keeping in mind the sequence and important

components of the story. Some lessons were completed in two sessions. In first

session they wrote the answers and the other session was devoted to draw the

story and vice versa.

Apart from assistance provided by the teacher and the researcher, peer-

assisted learning and cooperative learning also happened. They were helped

by their more experienced peers. In few sessions, group of 3–5 children was

made, they did the answers and drawing with the help of each others. While

forming the group it was taken care that one academically good child should

be paired with other weak children. In other sessions small group of two

members were made. Children who were good at studies, used to complete

their task fast and then used to disturb other children. In order to avoid it, they

were asked to help those who were very slow.

The study was planned specially for children with LPs and LDs.

Therefore, the researcher was more conscious to monitor their progress,

behaviours and reaction towards the intervention. It has been mentioned earlier

that 6 children who were not able to read were engaged in drawing stories after

listening to the narration. Sometimes, these children after looking at other’s

drawing made an effort to copy it. However, the positive aspect was their

engagement with the content in some or the other way.

Phase III: Lead Phase

During the intervention session, few stories were given to children to do

independently. Children were asked to answer story mapping questions along

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with drawing after reading the story. No instructions and assistance was

provided by the teacher and peers but after completion of the sessions, children

were given feedback. Feedback was given in a certain ways, for example, if a

child’s answer (that purported to measure literal comprehension) was

incorrect, then s/he was directly instructed to read the section of the story

where answer was explicitly presented. If the answer of the inferential

comprehension question was wrong then the child was directed to the relevant

information in the text. In addition, the child was asked several facilitative

questions that would have helped her/him to draw an inference, therefore,

would help her/him get the correct answer. More detail about the feedback

instructions has been mentioned in Chapter 4.

Phase IV: Maintenance Phase/Post-intervention

The intervention lasted for one semester (second semester) and was

terminated at the end of the academic year (2012-13). The follow up

assessment of the study was done after a period of 2 weeks to see the

maintenance effect of the intervention programme. Children were assessed on

the same aspects as pre-intervention to see the effect. For the assessment of

language related skills, a new set of materials was developed in order to avoid

familiarity effect with materials (appendix III).

In order to see the maintenance effect of story mapping technique, same

procedure as pre-test was followed. Children were given a story but the story

was not used earlier. They were encouraged to read the story on their own and

answer 10 generic questions in the written form. At the same time, they were

also asked to generate map of the story by drawing it. Session was constant

monitored by the teacher as well as the researcher to make sure they should

not consult each other and they should not show their answers to anyone. Story

that was taken to see the maintenance effect was taken from the same grade as

the pre-intervention assessment. In addition, 16 children (LDs= 5, low IQ=2

and children without learning problems=9) were interviewed about what

strategies they used while doing the intervention sessions. These children were

purposively selected as they were able to articulate their thoughts and used

107

strategies in better way. A guideline was used for the interview (for more

detail see appendix IV). In the table (3.7), all sources of data collection and its

nature and way of analysis have been mentioned.

Data Collection Procedure: Data was collected through various sources. Table 3.7 gives details of all sources of data collection.

Table 3.7 Sources of Data Collection

S.

No.

Method of data collection Source Measured Aspects Nature of

Data

1 Children’s achievement in

examination conducted by the school

Teacher and school

records

Academic performance Quantitative

2 General classroom observation Teacher and children Effect of intervention on teacher

behaviour, teaching methodology, and

teacher-child interaction

Qualitative

3 Observation of intervention sessions Teacher and children Feasibility and effectiveness of the

programme for teachers and children

Qualitative

4 Interviews Teacher Feasibility and effectiveness of the

programme for teachers and children

Qualitative

5 Scores on language skills assessment

tools (pre and post-test)

Children Language skills Quantitative

6 Interviews Children A child’s understanding of the use of

story mapping technique and their

understanding to comprehend what they

read. Tried to explore underlying

cognitive functioning while using story

mapping technique.

Qualitative

Details of the Intervention Sessions

Interventions sessions were of two types with different underlying

rationale. The first type of intervention focused on the enhancement of the

comprehension ability of Class IV children. The second type of intervention

session tried to improve the literacy skills of the children. The following

section will give description of the sessions:

Sessions based on Story Mapping Technique and Conceptual Map: Format

and procedure of the intervention sessions based on graphic organisers has

been already mentioned. A description of the story mapping items has been

presented in table 3.2. In order to analyse data gathered through story mapping

technique a scoring system was followed. Maximum possible scores were 15

(table 3.2). The data gathered through the use of conceptual maps was

analysed in qualitative way.

Sessions Based on Language Acquisition: After pre-assessment of children,

it was found that children had difficulties in reading and writing certain words.

Their difficulties were mainly in the use of matras (vowels), similar looking

words and letters and blended words. So intervention sessions were planned to

address above mentioned areas where children were weak. For example,

training for using blended words was done by asking children to write down

name of their friends and classmates that had some blended words. They were

asked one by one to stand and tell the name of their friends. Many children

came up with wrong names but they were corrected by their other classmates.

While doing this, they were taught which names contained some compound or

blended words. Then children randomly were asked to come to front and write

the name of their friend and point out the blended letters. They were also asked

to separate the letters. This was the initial session to start the training related to

language skills. Direct training was given for the enhancement of basic reading

skills and children were assigned extra classwork work and home works. The

teacher focused on the weak area of children and provided input accordingly.

Analysis Procedure

Qualitative data gathered during the research was translated and

transcribed from Hindi into English. The data was thoroughly reviewed by the

110

researcher in order to identify changes in the teacher’s and children’s

behaviours, reaction towards the intervention programme, ease of

implementation of sessions and learning outcomes which helped to assess

feasibility of the programme.

Data collected from various sources for instance, interviews with the

teacher, filed notes, observation of ongoing intervention sessions and feedback

meetings were triangulated to assess changes in the teaching-learning approach

practiced by the teacher in the classroom, changes in her behaviour and

attitude towards children, which has been categorised in different themes.

Effect of the intervention programme on the teacher has been presented in

Chapter 5.

Effect of the programme on children’s learning outcomes has been

presented by triangulating data from the pre-test and post-test performance of

children, children’s achievement in examination conducted by the school

(mid-term and final examination), interviews with the teacher and children

(transcribed and translated from Hindi into English), information from the

field notes, reflection from planning an feedback meeting with the teacher and

teacher-child interaction pattern. So in order to have in-depth and

comprehensive understanding, both qualitative and quantitative data was

utilised to assess nature and extent of effect of the intervention programme on

children’s learning outcomes. The SPSS software was used for quantitative

data analysis. The classroom comprised diverse groups of children, therefore,

different groups were formed and data was analysed and results have been

presented according to four groups: children with LD (N=5), children with low

IQ (N=2), children without learning problems (N=32) and children who could

not read (N=6). For quantitative analysis, a non-parametric test was chosen as

samples were not randomly selected. Therefore, for comparing learning

outcomes of children without learning problems from pre-test to post-test and

their performance in mid-term and final examination (before and after the

intervention) Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test was used and significance was

established at 0.01 level. Additional enhancement in children’s performance in

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reading skills and behavioural domain have been presented by considering

pace, nature and extent of individual differences of children, was supported by

qualitative data.

Ethical Consideration

In the present research, the following ethical considerations were followed:

Informed Consent: Permission to conduct the research was taken from the

school administrator and teachers in the written form. Children were minor

and the researcher could not meet their parents as they had no time to come to

the school, therefore, teachers guaranteed the permission to include children in

the research.

Voluntary Participation: Concerned school, teachers, and children were free

to participate in the research, and they had got freedom to quit any time if they

wanted to.

The information about the children with LDs and low IQ by their names

was not disclosed to the class teacher and any other school authority because

of two reasons. Firstly, the researcher was not certified to diagnose children

with LDs and low IQ and secondly, to avoid labelling of these children.

Confidentiality: In order to maintain confidentiality, information about

schools, teachers, and children was kept confidential. Therefore, the real name

of the school, teacher and children has not been mentioned anywhere in the

thesis. Data gathered during the course of the study was used only for the

research purpose.

During the intervention period it was also taken care that participants

should not be harmed physically or mentally. As mentioned earlier, when

children were taken to the Tata Institute of Social sciences for the testing, they

were accompanied by the school teacher.

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The researcher suggested the school authority for the need and

requirement of further diagnosis and certification for children with LDs and

LPs, so that they would be able to avail legal facilities in academic realm.

The present chapter has dealt with details of methodology followed in

the study. Next three chapters are about the analysis and results of the

intervention programme. The chapter 4 deals with details of intervention

sessions, content and process of implementation. The Chapter 5 is about

intensive teacher-training, the role of the teacher, and the researcher in the

success of the intervention. Impact of the intervention programme on

children’s learning outcomes have been presented in Chapter 6.